Healthcare concerns impact all of us. We're all vulnerable, we're all human. However, factors such as lifestyle, environment, and physical conditions vary across the country, each of which with an influence upon the incidence of many types of dangerous diseases.

Cardiovascular disease (which includes heart attacks, stroke, angina pectoris, atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis, and high blood pressure) remains the number one killer in North America, and high cholesterol levels bring on an increased risk to these diseases.

According to Kantar Media, in 2011, the top advertising spender in the Prescription Medication category was Pfizer's Lipitor, a cholesterol drug. Also in the top 20 was another medication targeting high cholesterol, AstraZeneca's Crestor. While these are national brands with coast to coast sales, our mission at TVB is to explore whether there are geographic sales anomalies that might present the pharmaceutical marketers with an opportunity to optimize their ad spending beyond a national campaign. Our analysis revealed that there were two key factors indicating a very definitive geographic story. Not only were there differences in states' insurance formularies that control drug reimbursement, but the actual incidence of the medical condition and patients acting to address it varies by geography.

We used 2011 GfK MRI Market-by-Market data to look at the high cholesterol incidence and the various treatment options for it customers most often choose. Overall, 37% of adults who reported having or had high cholesterol said they used a branded prescription remedy to treat it, while 38% said they used a generic prescription remedy. 8% used a non-prescription or a home/herbal remedy, and another 10% have not sought out treatment.

With those variables, we began to look at the markets where the respondents indexed higher using a branded prescription remedy. Looking at the top 75 markets, we learned that by concentrating on the 20 highest indexing markets, we will reach 18% of the households in the U.S., 20% of the high cholesterol sufferers, and 22% of the high cholesterol sufferers who use a branded medication.

Top High Cholesterol Rx Markets

Index to U.S.

Ft. Myers-Naples, FL

149

West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL

138

Buffalo, NY

137

Roanoke-Lynchburg, VA

136

Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, PA

134

Wilkes Barre-Scranton, PA

134

Pittsburgh, PA

133

Hartford & New Haven, CT

132

Providence-New Bedford, RI-MA

131

Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY

128

Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota), FL

125

Richmond-Petersburg, VA

125

Philadelphia, PA

124

Toledo, OH

122

Greensboro-H Point-Winston Salem, NC

121

Cleveland-Akron (Canton), OH

118

Jacksonville, FL

118

Boston (Manchester), MA-NH

117

Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-And, SC-NC

117

Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, FL

116

These are by far your best prospects. Consider this: Set aside 15% of your national plan budget and allocate it to Spot TV in your high ROI markets. A dollar spent here will automatically yield more targeted consumers than your national spend and will result in a better media buy and more brand sales…cross our heart.

Ron Salmon is a Director of Marketing Research at TVB. Ron can be reached at Ron@tvb.org.

The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggers.com management or associated bloggers. MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries.

Ron Salmon

Director of Marketing Research
TVB
Ron Salmon is a Director of Marketing Research at TVB. He joined the company in 2001, and prior to that worked at Katz Media. He lives in Wall, NJ with his wife and son.